22 THE entomologist's record. 



On Caradrina ambigua from Sandown. — " As the species exhibited 

 to-night has already been recorded as C. superstes, it seems desirable to 

 say a few words in explanation of my present announcement of it as 

 C. ambigua. I am inclined to doubt whether our two British forms, 

 that have been hitherto supposed to be, the one C. amhiijua, and the 

 other C. superstes, are distinct, indeed from what has come under my 

 notice I feel sure they are not. It will be remembered that Mr. Tutt 

 in 1889 (Entom., vol. xxii., p. 235), recorded the Isle of Wight speci- 

 mens as C. ambigua, but in 1891 (Brit. Noct., vol. i., p. 148) he introduced 

 C. snpertites as also British, and referred the Freshwater specimens to 

 the latter species. Looking at Herrich-Schaeffer's figures last Saturday, 

 I felt no doubt that the insect I had taken at Sandown, and had received 

 from Mr. Hodges from Guernsey, was the one there figured under the 

 name plantaginis = ambigua ; but, in order to get further light on the 

 subject, I, this morning, visited the Natural History Museum, and ex- 

 amined the specimens from Zeller and Frey, which are in the collection 

 there. These agreed with the testimony of Herrich-Schaeffer and all 

 the other Continental authors, in that the more testaceous species was 

 labelled C. ambigua, the more ochreous one C. superstes — exactly re- 

 versing Mr. Tutt's differentiation {Eut. Bee, vol. iv., pp. 98-9). But 

 C. superstes has the stigmata and the rows of transverse spots darker 

 than in the figure {I.e., No. 2, pi. c, fig. -4), of Mr. Tutt's Deal example, 

 so that I suspect that even that is only a variety of the Continental 

 ambigua. Tlie true C. su2)erstes has also a very distinct row of black 

 spots on the margin of the fore-wing. Another little point that is not 

 without significance is, that Fuchs, who knew both species well, and 

 had reared C. superstes from the egg, says (Stett. eut. Zeit., vol. xlv., 

 pp. 261, et seq.) that C. superstes is single-brooded, and occurs contem- 

 poraneously with C. taraxaci in July, being worn by the middle of 

 August, while C. ambigua is double-brooded, the 2nd brood being about 

 from August 20th, on into September. This latter date agrees accurately 

 with the time of appearance of most of our British examples." 



Mr. Tutt, after referring to the original articles in the British Noctuce 

 and their Varieties, said that Mr. Front's statement as to the more 

 ochreous species being C'. superstes and the greyer one C. ambigua was 

 perfectly correct, and that this differentiation agreed with that in the 

 British Noctuce, &c., Vol. i. ; the names were transposed in theFlate (c), 

 and also in the short account of the species (Ent. Rec, iv., pp. 98-9). 

 It was, of course, quite possible that Mr. Front might be correct in 

 uniting the two forms, but without going fully into the matter, he did 

 not think the two forms as described in The British Noctuce, &c., were 

 other than two distinct species, nor did he much doubt but that they 

 were identical with the two European species. The matter, however, 

 would have to be looked into. One thing was evident, and that was, 

 that on the differentiation of the species, as proved by the original type 

 description in The British Noctucv, the Guernsey specimens which had 

 been captured, and most (probably all) of the Isle of Wight sjiecimens, 

 were Caradrina ambigua. 



The Kev. C. K. N. Burrows of Rainham, then read the following 

 paper: — (See vol. v., p. 281). 



Mr. Tutt pro[)Osed a hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Burrows for his 

 paper. He stated that, strangely enough, the first sjjecimen of Ayrotis 

 obscura he saw on sugar, almost deluded him into the belief that the 



